


four dreams in a row

by imprintofadream (imprint_of_a_doe)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, M/M, Panic Attacks, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-22
Updated: 2013-03-22
Packaged: 2017-12-06 03:25:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/730971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imprint_of_a_doe/pseuds/imprintofadream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry loved Louis when he was eighteen, when he was twenty two, when his heart was breaking because Louis was <i>leaving</i>, was choosing something other than him. He just loved him too selfishly, too wholly, and in the end it tore them apart, and he never even stopped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	four dreams in a row

**Author's Note:**

> written for the [1d olymfics](http://1d-olymfics.livejournal.com/), team future, prompt 8, because betsy told me to.
> 
> inspired by 'straw house, straw dog' by richard siken.

**four dreams in a row**

\---

You are a fever I am learning to live with, and everything is happening  
                at the wrong end of a very long tunnel.

\--Richard Siken, _Straw House, Straw Dog_

\---

Harry trips over a curb, catches himself against the light pole, laughs in the face of the paparazzi buzzing behind him. He shouldn’t be in Los Angeles. More than that, he shouldn’t be alone and _drunk_ in Los Angeles in the early morning hours, making his way back toward his apartment from the club. 

“Bugger off, fuck’s sake,” he mutters, presses his palm against the wall next to the pavement as he walks. He’s leaning more of his weight than he’d like to be on the solid stone. It’s about all he has now for support, and he laughs at the thought.

“Harry, Harry! Is this a response to Niall Horan’s wedding? Is this because you didn’t receive an invitation? Harry!”

He ignores the shouted questions. God, he hates this city, he does, but London is--London has a lot of memories, okay, because--because Harry doesn’t care, hates London even more than he hates LA, and that’s all that fucking matters. 

\---

“Maybe you should try talking to Niall,” Zayn says. 

“Niall made his choice clear, mate, I’m not going to pressure him to reverse that decision.” Harry tilts his head back onto the sofa cushions, looks up at Zayn sitting above him. “Sorry. I know you hate it.”

“I just--I don’t understand what happened.” Zayn sighs, leans forward to brace his elbows on his knees, turning the beer in his hand as he peels the label off. “I know it was ages ago, but I figured after all the stuff we went through, we’d make it through okay. I hate that I was wrong.”

“We were all wrong.” Harry closes his eyes, refuses to think about just how wrong he had been, back then, when they all had trouble believing the lights flashing in their faces were real. 

This is reality now.

\---

_“C’mon, Haz, I need to talk to you!”_

_Harry grins, shuts his computer screen off even as he stands, reaches out to snag his phone. “Coming, Louis, just a second!”_

\---

Liam emails him on a Thursday, and Harry bruises his knuckles punching the kitchen wall in response. He can’t even call now, and he sounds so _careful_ , so guarded, and Harry can always remember Liam smiling or laughing even when he was confused, lost; Harry bets he was frowning when he sent this.  
 _  
Harry--_

_Haven't heard from you in a while. Saw the papers. Has Zayn talked to you yet? I know he was worried._

_Please don’t be like this._

_\--Liam_  
  
Harry laughs when he sees the purple spreading across the back of his hand, watches it turn blue and black and yellow over the next few days, wants it to stay and remind him--because it’s a visual aid, isn’t it, that severe bruising, the pain lancing through numb surprise. 

God, he hates everything.

\---

Harry never would have guessed it, if anyone asked. 

He and Louis were close, okay, everyone knew that. Ask all those interviewers and fans--they certainly assumed so.

And maybe Harry assumed too, okay, maybe he thought he didn't have to work at his friendship with Louis, didn't have to worry about their relationship at all.

And maybe he was spectacularly, startlingly _wrong._

_\---_

_“They don’t know what they’re talking about,” Louis says, slings his arm over Harry’s shoulder. “Don’t listen to them, Hazza.” ___

_“Easier said than done, Lou.” Harry looks down at his drink objectively, grimaces. At least Zayn seems to get it, judging by the way he’s working through his own beers. Even_ Niall _looks worried._

_“Look, just because they brought up letting us work by ourselves doesn’t mean they don’t want the band as a whole anymore. I think they just want to give us room to explore ourselves--that or they just want to capitalize on our individual fame.” Louis grins. “Mine is obviously worth most.”_

_“I don’t want us to split up, even for a short time,” Harry says, ignoring half of Louis’ words. “I don’t... I don’t think we’d make it past that, to be honest. I’d like to think that we could but we’re used to having each other to lean on when it gets rough.”_

_“We could handle it. It’s not like we’d leave each other to deal with everything on our own just because we’re working on our own albums. We’re still mates.”_

_“Still, Louis, none of us have even brought it up before. What made them think we’d be interested?”_

_Louis takes a drink, moves his arm, and Harry doesn’t notice. “No idea, but we’ll work through it.”_

\---

Some days he wakes up so angry that he throws himself on a treadmill and runs until his legs feel like jello, as if he can get away from everything in his life that’s gone wrong. 

Usually he ends up sprawled on the floor at the foot of the machine, gasping and half a second from crying as he stares up at the unforgiving ceiling, aching, feeling just as terrible as he did when he first woke. 

Then he gets up and gets back on the treadmill until somebody pulls him forcibly off.

\---

Zayn knocks on his door in September, and Harry thinks the security bloke let him in because he recognizes him from the multiple visits, but it’s a surprise to see Niall hovering behind him.

Harry feels like he’s been punched, stares, and his mouth tries to act like nothing has changed, he starts to smile, and then he’s trying to crush Zayn’s foot where it’s blocking the door from slamming.

“Let us in, you prick.”

He lets them in. If asked, it’s surprise, and he can’t stop staring at Niall.

It’s been a long time, really. He looks good, looks happy under the nervous anger obvious in his body language. 

“You got married,” Harry says, because he can state the obvious like nobody’s business, unless you ask him what happened to the band--except that’s not fair, because it wasn’t obvious to _anyone._

Niall nods, and it’s so fucking _weird_ that he’s sticking to himself like this, that none of them are touching, that they form three points of a triangle filled with awkward problems and broken history. Harry hates it.

He swallows, looks at Zayn. “What are you doing?”

“Taking a trip. Pack a bag.” Zayn grins at him, and it’s nervous but hopeful, and when he reaches for Harry’s shoulder his grip is firm. 

Harry looks at Niall, at the unfamiliar little things he doesn't’ recognize--little things Ed could probably catalogue, but that throw Harry for a loop nonetheless. Niall meets his eyes and Harry takes a deep breath, shakes his hands out. “Yeah, okay. Yeah.”

\---

They make the news, of course. Paparazzi catch them at the airport, and Harry feels a little less cornered than he’s used to, a little less harried despite their uptick in energy. No one has seen Harry with Niall for--for too long, now--so of course it’s a big fucking deal, but he’s not alone this time, not stuck on his own and overwhelmed, and this is an illusion of a support system he’s been missing for so long. 

He still has no idea what the hell Zayn is doing, but he goes along with it, because Zayn is the last one he has, the last one to stick by him, the last one Harry hasn’t alienated, and he’ll do anything to prevent shutting that door. 

Zayn sits between him and Niall on the plane, talks with both of them, and the first time Niall says something directly to Harry, his throat closes up and all he can do is fight to breathe.

Harry keeps the company of bitter anger these days, confusion and heartache and betrayal, but sitting here on this plane, with one more person than he’s had in years, all he can feel is tentative, fragile hope.

\---

_“I’m going to make my own album.”_

_“I told you, Louis, nobody’ll want to sell an album of you laughing through the entire thing.”_

_“I wanted to tell you first, Haz. You’re my best mate, you know? I just... wanted you to know.”_

_“You’re not serious.”_

_“Harry. I’m going to do it. I want to. And I’d like your support when I tell the lads, you know? Your approval means a lot to me. I haven’t even told my mum yet.”_

_Harry stares, can’t feel anything but his heart pounding, and panic blooms in short bursts of breath, something rushing hot through his blood as he pushes away from the table. “No. Louis--”_

_“I love the band, I do, you know that.” Louis doesn’t get up, just looks up at him and_ god _but his eyes are so serious, so plaintive, and Harry can’t stand it, can’t stand knowing Louis wants to leave them, leave_ him. _“But I think it’d be fun to learn more about myself as an artist, take the chance to play around a little bit. It’s only a few songs. It’s not like I’m leaving for good.”_

_“Yes, it is.”_

\---

If seeing Niall felt like a punch in the solar plexus, seeing Liam waiting for them when they get to New York actually, _literally_ causes him to trip over someone’s luggage and land face-first on the floor, heart racing and palms burning. 

“Zayn, what did you _do?_ ” It’s hard to breathe, hard to think straight, because now Harry _knows_ what’s coming, Harry _knows_ that Zayn must have gotten fed up with everything after years of running back and forth between them, that he thinks he’s going to _fix_ them.

Harry broke them in the first place, broke them well and truly, and he _knows_ Zayn’s intentions won’t do a single motherfucking thing. 

“Get up, Harry, you’re attracting attention.” Zayn lifts him up easily, Niall moving to block the cameras coming out, and Liam bends down to pick up his bag. 

“Niall, Zayn.” He pauses, offers Harry a smile and his bag. “Harry.”

“Where is he?” 

It’s not what he wants to ask, not really--he should say hello, should apologize, but all he can think of is _‘yes, it is,’_ and what’s coming. It feels like fire racing over his skin, licking into crevices and burning out the reminders he’d thought were further down. 

Liam shifts on his feet, looks at Zayn; he’s still holding Harry’s bag. “Er.” 

“Leeds.” Niall crosses his arms, turns to look in on their semicircle. “And you can’t back out now, Harry, not this time.”

“I didn’t back out the first time! _He_ did!” Harry can’t help it--he’s yelling in an airport at his old bandmates, voice breaking on old lies, but he’s in so much pain, and he’s furious, and helpless, and maybe that’s not anger after all, maybe that’s fear, God, that’s _fear,_ and _regret,_ and why did Zayn have to change this? Why couldn’t Harry live out the rest of his sorry life running himself to death on a treadmill, running, running, he’s always, _always_ been running.

Zayn reaches out for his shoulder again, squeezes, centers him. “C’mon, Harry, only one more flight.” 

It’s not a flight though, not moving _away;_ Zayn is dragging them all forward. 

Or maybe it’s backwards after all.

\---

There was this one time, back when they were first starting out on the X Factor, back when they were standing in that circle talking about what shoes they wanted to wear, when they looked at each other with this sense of amazement, because they’d made it, they were good enough to be called back, to be given another chance, and they were damn well going to make the best of it. 

Harry thinks they tried, they really did, but for years he’s blamed himself for blaming Louis for _wanting_ more than that.

He knows, objectively, that Louis never meant to hurt him. And he knows that he, Harry, _did_ mean to hurt them, that Harry _wanted_ Louis to feel what he felt. 

All through Louis’ success, through the lads trying to pull them back together, through losing every one of them but Zayn, Harry has hated himself, and he hates Louis for that.

It’s a vicious cycle. 

\---

Louis lives in a good part of town, a flat that takes up an entire floor, and Harry looks up at his windows and thinks that he probably has spare rooms set up for the girls, for Liam or Niall or Zayn to crash in when they visit. 

Harry has never seen this place. Harry lives in hotel rooms and apartments that lack _home_ and he never gets a place with a spare room because... because Zayn is the only person he ever sees, the only person who comes to find him, and Harry doesn’t mind sharing his bed. Zayn can still fall asleep pretty much anywhere.

“This is a bad idea,” he says, swallowing down the nerves. “Why the fuck did you think we could just _do_ this, Zayn?” 

“Because we need to.” Liam steps up next to him, hitches his pack higher on his shoulder as he adjusts his sunglasses. It’s strange how much older he looks, how serious he seems now, and Harry stares a little, because everyone _but_ him has grown up, has moved on, and they’re healthy individuals. 

They probably never hope that running will kill them one day, that they’ll slip off the back of the treadmill and crack their heads open, that the treadmill itself will just keep on moving, unaware, uncaring, cycling on without them.

“Easy for you to say,” he says under his breath, fingers tightening around the strap of his own bag. “You lot at least have a place to sleep. I’m gonna end up on the street.”

“Probably,” Niall agrees from his other side--he’s grinning, just a little, when Harry looks at him. 

“Thanks.”

“Eh, you can afford it until you fix yourselves, can’t you?”

Depending on how long that takes, Harry isn’t so sure.

\---

_“Harry, Harry, calm down! Mate, you’ve got to fucking--take a breath,will you?”_

_Harry shakes. His knuckles are white and his jaw too tight and he can barely see, okay, so advising him to_ take a breath, _like it’s so simple, so normal, so perfectly fucking possible--it’s ridiculous and it’s_ not. going. to. happen.

_Because Louis is leaving him, leaving_ them. _And nobody has any idea, nobody knows what he does, but they will, he has to tell them, has to--_

_Harry breaks down crying in Zayn’s arms before he can say another word._

\---

Louis runs down the stairs to meet them in the lobby, beaming, and Harry hangs back, hopes he won’t be noticed because he doesn’t want to chase that expression away. He just wants to watch Louis with the boys again, watch the way they greet each other grinning and laughing and touching like it’s not been six years since they fell apart--or maybe it was only Harry who fell apart, Harry who never forgave and never moved on for all his running. 

Except Louis notices him then, over Liam’s shoulder, and Harry turns away, because it _hurts,_ it really fucking hurts, to see shock and hope and disappointment all at once. 

“Harry?”

“Louis.” He forces it out, the word, his name, and it burns through him like shame and fear and anger, bleeds into past and present and the gaping chasm between the two--the two of them, what they once meant to each other and how they stand now and Harry wants to stand at Louis’ side, he _does,_ but he--

“What’s going on?” 

_\--can’t._

Zayn turns around half-way, grabs Harry’s wrist, fingers curling over the bones until Harry focuses enough to pull himself away from the brink. “I’m tired of not mentioning you to each other, and pretending everything is okay. Liam hates having to email you when you’re pulling away from us. Niall couldn’t invite _either_ of you to his wedding, despite wanting you both to be there. You need to sort your shit out, come to terms with whatever happened, okay?”

“You know what happened,” Harry says, and Zayn takes his hand back the way Harry wants those words back, wants to take back _‘yes it is’_ and everything, just _everything_ that happened after.

Niall shrugs, pushes his hands into his pockets. “I don’t think we ever got the full story, actually. I think there were a few things left out.”

Harry stares, and Louis finally unfreezes, fingers drumming against his thighs as he turns toward the stairs. “Let’s please not do this out here. If you lot insist, we’re taking it upstairs.”

“That messy?” Zayn exchanges a small grin with Liam, a little forced, a bit hopeful maybe, and Harry wants to punch him just as much as he wants to hug him. 

“More than,” Louis says. He turns his back then, and Harry only follows because Zayn reaches out for him again.

\---

It’s a nice place, and Harry was right about the spare rooms. There are two, and Liam and Niall take one while Zayn pulls Harry into the second, pulls his pack down off his shoulder for him and sets it on the bed. “You okay, Styles?”

“I... not really,” he admits, pushing his hands back through his hair. “This isn’t going to be easy.”

“No, probably not,” Zayn agrees. “But at least you guys can talk about it. Maybe you can... fix yourself.”

“Don’t know if that’s possible, mate.” Harry offers him a small smile, rolls his shoulders back; it does nothing to dislodge the anxious knot in his chest, just under his sternum. If it gets much larger it’ll crack the bone straight through, force its way out in the form of clotted blood and chips of calcified skeleton and swirling panic. Maybe it’d be better that way.

“Is it going to be easier to have us here, or should the boys and I clear out for a while?” 

Zayn looks at him like he understands, like he cares, and Harry’s smile morphs into something honest. “No idea. Maybe... give us a few minutes to ourselves and if things start to get out of hand, you lot can take over.”

“Yeah, ‘course. We’ll be ready just in case.” He pauses a moment, nods his head decisively. “And if you think you can’t do it yet, text me and I’ll get you out of there until you calm down. You’ve... done really well so far, Harry.”

He laughs, shakes his head as he grips the doorknob of the bedroom. “Not really, but thanks.”

\---

_“You’ll never let me go, right?”_

_Harry gasps, arches up against him and drags his nails down Louis’ back when Louis drives into him, scrabbling to regain some semblance of control. The fan spins overhead, slow, and sunlight creeps under the blinds--it’s midday, one of the rare days when the weather reflects their moods, and they’re tangled in the sheets of Louis’ bed, tangled in each other._

_Louis laughs, shaking them both, and thrusts forward again. “I_ won’t, _Harry,_ god _, now_ stop talking.”

_“I thought you--” Harry breaks off, throws his head back when Louis bites at his neck “--god, I thought you liked my voice, Tomlinson?”_

_“Shut up, shut up, shut_ up _.” Louis presses the words into his neck, presses him down into the mattress, presses himself into every protected nook and cranny of Harry below him, and Harry_ smiles _until Louis adjusts the angle and he sees stars on the insides of his eyelids._

_He’s never giving this up._

_(He doesn’t just give it up. He throws it away.)_

\---

Louis makes them coffee without saying a word, passes Harry a cup and doesn’t add anything to his own.

(He used to take it with a dash of milk, a spoonful of sugar, and a bit of whipped cream from the can on top. Harry knows, okay, because that can of whipped cream actually went quite a long way in the bedroom--and maybe that’s why there’s no cream now, nothing sweet about this coffee. This isn’t _his_ Louis.)

“So.”

Harry looks down into his mug, presses his fingers to the sides; they overlap, the same way past and present are doing now. “Zayn’s idea.”

“Figured.” Louis takes a sip of his coffee, leans back against the kitchen sink, moves to put the milk away when it goes unused. He’s moving too much, too tense, and Harry knows it’s his fault.

He just... doesn’t know where to start, because it never really _ended_ , did it?

“Look,” Louis says five minutes later, when Harry can’t talk because he can barely swallow around his heart, “I know this is awkward. But I’m willing to be normal around the others if you are. If you don’t want to talk to me, fine, okay, but--”

“It’s not that!” Harry pretty much regrets looking up as soon as he catches Louis’ eyes, sees the anger there that’s absent in his voice, and his heart clenches. “I--I don’t want--I can’t--Do you--”

He breaks off, frustrated and--okay, he’s _afraid,_ he’ll admit it, he can’t do anything but when it’s swirling hot in his veins, rioting under his skin with prickling tension--

“What, did you forget how to talk with nobody around to listen?”

\--and that hurts, it really fucking does, and his tongue is twisting back on itself, feels like it’s slithering down his throat and filling his wind passages and he can’t--

God, he _can’t_. 

“Louis! Harry, hey, Harry, calm down, come on--” 

It sounds like Zayn, feels like Zayn’s hand on his shoulder before he goes numb, and he can’t exactly see right now, not the way he needs to, can’t hear clearly, but maybe he doesn’t want to after that. Maybe it’s better that he can’t do anything but feel the heat sweeping down his spine, confine himself in a corner furthest away from everything--

Zayn talks him down, somehow, and when he can finally open his eyes and see something other than multi colored spots, when he can hear something other than his heart thundering through him, they’re in the guest bedroom and he’s looking at the collar of Zayn’s shirt and his hair and the skin of his neck, face pressed flush against him. Zayn’s hand is in his hair, the other over his heart, and he sighs when he feels Harry shudder.

“I haven’t seen one like that in a long time,” he says, and he sounds scared too, and _sorry_ , but it’s not him who should be.

“Sorry,” Harry says--croaks. He clears his throat, embarrassed and shaky. Zayn nods, doesn’t pull his hands away. 

“Should have expected it, really. You got close in the airport when we picked Liam up, but maybe holding it back made this one worse.”

“Would have been bad anyway,” he mutters. “Where is everyone?”

“Liam and Niall took Louis out front for a few. Think Niall’s smoking.” 

Harry finally pulls away, rubs a shaking hand over his face. “Jesus, I fucking hate this.” 

“I’d hoped it might go better that that,” Zayn says, and Harry starts to laugh, feels sore with tension draining out of him. 

“Pipe dream, Zayn. It was always gonna be rough.”

\---

Zayn makes him shower when they get up, gives him a bottle of water and a bowl of soup when he gets done, and then forces him to take a nap. Says something about the stress of flying and airports and some other bullshit, but when he wakes up at 3am he feels slightly better. Zayn is snoring at his side, spread out on his back on top of the covers, and Harry rolls his eyes before flipping his blankets over him. 

He hangs around in the dark room for a few minutes, checks his phone where Zayn had plugged it in for him--not that he’s expecting much, but it’s the principle of the thing.

By the time he ventures out into the hallway, he’s thinking about sneaking back to the airport, but, well, he’s come this far, and it makes no sense to have done this if he’s just going to turn around and pretend it never happened. 

Only, he doesn’t expect Louis to be up, sitting on a stool in the kitchen with a half-full bottle of beer in front of him. He doesn’t look up at Harry when he stops in the doorway, just spins the bottle in a half circle and back, again, until Harry clears his throat. 

Louis looks over at him, and despite the years, Harry knows those features, knows some of those habits, the twist at the corner of his mouth that means he feels guilty for being too sharp, an edged blade twisting a little too close to home. 

Not that Harry is anywhere near home, now.

“Don’t,” Harry says, pointing at him. “I deserved it. You were right.”

“You did,” Louis agrees, and he’s not looking away now, he’s looking _at Harry_ and god it’s been a long time. “You look different.”

“It’s been six years.” Harry shrugs, rocks back on his heels as he looks away. This is painful but he thinks of Zayn sleeping on the bed in the other room, shoes still on, hair mussed and shirt collar stretched where Harry was clinging to it. He looks up again. “I owe you an apology. I owe _all of you_ an apology, and much more, but that’s where I’m gonna start.”

Louis doesn’t answer, turns back to his drink.

“I’m sorry I reacted so badly when you said you wanted to go solo.”

“I never said that!” Louis spins on the counter stool, hands shooting up. “I _never wanted to leave the band_.” 

“I know.” 

“Obviously, you don’t, because you ran and told the boys I was breaking my contract, or don’t you remember?”

Harry closes his eyes and leans back against the fridge. He wishes he knew what had happened to that coffee he never drank earlier. “Look, I was twenty two. I was... Louis, you had to know I was in love with you. I was afraid. You said you wanted to explore yourself as an artist and I thought it was because... because we overshadowed you, and you were tired of it, and you blamed us for being stuck, or because of the rumors... I panicked.”

Louis doesn’t answer him. He doesn’t press, just thinks back, thinks back to the time when all five of them couldn’t go a day without talking, without touching each other in some small way, remembers the way Louis’ fingers always found purchase against his skin, the way his own fingers caught at sweaters and the buttons of trousers, under suspenders and across collarbones. 

“That doesn’t excuse anything, Harry.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” 

Harry opens his eyes again, looks at Louis. He’s still tense, angry and hurt and this is still all Harry’s fault, it really fucking is. “Yeah, Louis, I do. I lost you and Niall and Liam because I overreacted and misunderstood, because I wouldn’t listen to you. I wouldn’t have even come here if it weren’t for Zayn--”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have.”

He tries not to let that get to him, takes a deep breath and moves past it. Louis used to lash out whenever he felt cornered or embarrassed, and it was rare, it was, but--to be honest, Harry deserves far worse and he knows it. “Maybe,” he allows, “but I owe it to them to try. I... owe it to you, more than anyone else.”

“When I told you, that day at the kitchen table? I expected you to be logical. I wanted you to be excited and--and to support me if I tried to back out. And then you just--”

“I’m sorry, Louis. I really fucking am.” 

Louis throws the rest of his beer back, stands up as he reaches over to drop it in the bin. “Yeah, well, that doesn’t do much good.”

“Should I find another place or--”

“Stay here, I don’t care. Just--don’t expect me to forgive you or move on. You fucked everything up, and we’re all reaping the benefits now, and so long as you know that and feel suitably guilty then I don’t care what you’re doing or where you’re staying or if you leave again, but they will.”

Louis starts down the hallway and Harry lets his head thunk against the fridge behind him, closes his eyes against the dull pain. 

It’s much more manageable than the alternative. 

\---

Niall takes him out to the store to get food and stuff in the morning, since it seems they’re all staying a while. They walk most of the way in silence before Niall breaks it, hands shoved deep into his pockets, sunglasses settled on the bridge of his nose. 

“Have you been dealing with those since we broke up?”

Harry frowns at him, trips off a curb before he gets it. “The panic attacks?”

“Yeah. I don’t think I ever saw you have one when we were all still together.”

“I... No, they started about three years ago.” Harry shrugs, hides his own hands in pockets. “I usually have anti-anxiety meds, but they weren’t helping yesterday. It’s been a while since I’ve had one that bad.”

“It scared us all, you know.” Niall looks at him sideways, shrugs a bit, and Harry doesn’t respond, just looks down at the pavement under their feet. 

He wants to find someplace with a treadmill, wants to run--if he can’t run away, he needs to run in place, to keep moving, like a shark. Like oxygen deprivation actually gives him more room to breathe, gives him the space he needs, even though running never does anything to really solve his problems. 

“Sorry, Niall.”

“Zayn explained it after you fell asleep. I don’t think you should apologize for something that’s out of your control, mate.”

Harry shakes his head, shakes it again to get his hair out of his face. “No, I mean, I’m sorry for... for before. For trying to keep you out of my flat in LA, and for... for not being at your wedding. I think I drank myself into a stupor that night.”

“I saw the pictures,” Niall admits, and it sounds like he wants to laugh, just a little. Harry smiles at him, small and tentative, gets a grin in response, and when he brushes his shoulder against Niall’s, he doesn’t move away.

\---

Zayn sits by Harry during meals, either on the couch or at the table, and Harry listens as the lads learn how to be together around him, listens to their voices and watches them when they move, when they talk. They’ve all changed so much, and he keeps getting trapped, keeps thinking about them eight years ago, catching himself and shaking his head to get the memories out. He doesn’t know when they changed, not the way he wants to, can’t say exactly what makes Niall stay away from certain beers or why Liam needs an extra pillow to sleep. And he doesn’t know who Louis’ friends are, doesn’t recognize names and can’t understand the stories the boys tell over meals, the jokes they laugh over, because he wasn’t there.

When he excommunicated Louis from the band, he ostracized himself more fully than anyone could have guessed.

“And Alex just--she just starts laughing at Liam, and Li doesn’t even notice, but--”

To his consolation, at least Louis looks just as lost as he does right now. He hadn’t been invited to the wedding either. 

Liam is red in the face, though, laughing, and Niall’s smile is bright, the way it used to be when they were on tour goofing off, nothing like the quieter, more grown-up smile he gives now. Harry swallows around his spoon and looks to Zayn.

Zayn’s not looking at him, but he’s _smiling_ , honest to god smiling--not a smirk or a half smile or anything sad about it, but--god, he looks younger now, and Harry thinks just for a second that he’s eighteen again, they’re all eighteen,nineteen, twenty and laughing and shoving each other and breaking up arguments by tackling each other onto the couch in his and Louis’ apartment and--

He pushes away from the table at the same time Louis does, both of them pausing to stare at the other before Harry shakes his head, says, “Sorry, gonna step out for a breath of air. Carry on.”

He doesn’t expect Louis to follow him down the stairs, doesn’t know what to do once they’re both standing on the pavement in the evening air, streetlights bright above them, the lack of their breath in the air betraying them. 

“It was never supposed to be like this.”

“I know. I remember. You used to talk about the future a lot when you were plastered,” Louis says, leaning back against the bricks behind him. He pulls his sleeves over his fingers, crosses his arms over his chest. 

Harry half smiles at that, bitter, because he had, often and with enthusiasm. Good as things were, he always envisioned more--not in the way Louis had, but they both had their sights set forward. 

He kind of wishes they’d slowed down to enjoy it for awhile longer.

\---

_“Gemma’s on her way over,” Harry yells, passing Louis’ room. “Please get dressed, Lou.”_

_“There are more productive things to be done!”_

_“Playing Mario Kart in your pants does not count as productive,” he argues, grabbing one of the scarves from the coat rack. “If you wanna do something lazing around half dressed, get to writing like you keep mentioning.”_

_“Fuck off, Harry!”_

_“I’ll be back later! Try not to burn the straw house down.”_

_“Watch me, just watch me.”_

\---

The first time he and Louis are alone, really, truly alone together, Harry shatters a glass on the floor and Louis yells until his voice cracks and Harry doesn’t apologize anymore because he remembers just how _angry_ he used to get at Louis, and he’s angrier still because, more than that, he remembers how easy it was for them to forgive each other and pretend their fights meant nothing.

Compared to the fiasco that ended One Direction, their fights _did_ mean nothing. 

But when Harry drops his glass, watches it scatter across the tile flooring, the sound echoed in Louis’ voice, it doesn’t hurt so much anymore. 

This is honesty.

This is history.

This is acknowledging that they’re both fucked up and neither of them knows how to deal with blaming the other, and when the boys get back and find them sitting silently on opposite ends of the sofa, when they see the flush in their cheeks and the whiteness of their knuckles, they abso-fucking-lutely _beam_. 

\---

Louis gets home one day from wherever he’s been--Harry never asks, only knows if the other boys get curious enough when he’s in the room--and says, “Get dressed, we’re going out.”

“All of us?” Liam asks, not looking up from where he’s currently kicking Harry’s ass at some video game.

“Yeah.” Louis throws his scarf down on the back of the sofa as he walks past, right next to Harry, and when he breathes in he can smell Louis all over it, has to close his eyes to get his bearings for a moment, because, yeah, the whole place smells like Louis, but it’s not _concentrated_ , not as heady as Harry used to think with his nose pressed against the dip between Louis’ collarbones, gasping against his skin as they arched into each other. 

They were always arching into each other, always arcing towards one another, and now they’re like magnets of the same polarity, pushing away away away.

Louis makes them take a few shots before the leave, and Harry is flushed and laughing when Zayn and Liam pull him out the door, bickering and giggling and this, _this_ , has not changed one bit. This feels like being twenty two, like being family again, like nothing ever happened, only it’s not Louis’s hand on his hip, not Louis’ exuberant interruptions bursting from beside him. 

And Harry wishes it were, _always_ wishes it were.

But when they’re in line for the club, some place with a rioting line that parts for them with something like awe when Louis leads the way up, he’s right behind him, shuffled into him by the crowd, and he forgets just for a minute that he’s not allowed, that he’s breaking the rules, until Louis turns to stare at him. He backs off, wants to move forward again and rest his forehead on Louis’ shoulder, to never move, but then Louis is gone, disappearing into the dancers. 

The heat around him is intense, loud with music and voices, sweat and cologne and alcohol permeating everything until he feels lightheaded with it. Zayn pulls him in close, and Harry goes gratefully, closes his eyes and tries not to feel sick in his stomach with sudden regret, with _mourning_. 

He once accepted that he’d lost the boys, but Zayn’s idiotic plan gave him hope he couldn’t afford, and yeah, he does have Niall and Liam back, or he will, but--but he’ll never get Louis again, not the way he was, not the way they used to be. 

It feels like someone is dragging a hot sword up from below his navel to his diaphragm, slow and careful throughout the night, intent on opening him up to see his insides spill onto the floor. Through all the drinks, all the people he presses up against on the dance floor, through Niall jumping up and down and laughing and Liam curling his hand around Zayn’s forearm and Louis staring, simply _staring_ at Harry as he dances with some girl, slow circles of his hips and hands under her clothes and

\---

_“Fuck,” Harry whispers, almost chokes on it, head falling back against Louis’ shoulder. His hands scrabble for Louis’ neck, clasp behind it to pull him even further in, as if it’s possible with Louis pressed up against his back, hips flush with his ass, hands tight on his hipbones and mouth hot on his neck. “Louis, please.”_

_“Shhh,” Louis says, cool air raising goosebumps on Harry’s skin as Louis pulls back to look at the bruise he’s left, moves forward again as soon as he’s satisfied. “What do you want, Harry?”_

_“This is torture.” He can feel Louis, defined and hard behind him, grinding against him with purpose, intent; his pulse is louder even than the bass. “Can we leave? Go somewhere else?”_

_“Nowhere private here, Harry.” Louis pulls his collar aside, follows the new skin with sharp teeth and warm breath._

”Louis.”

_He laughs, kisses his way up Harry’s neck again to mouth at the edge of his jaw. “What do you_ want _?” The words vibrate down his jawbone, and he shudders, a small sound slipping past his resolve as it breaks._

_“I want to suck you off,” he says, voice hoarse, and Louis grinds against him harder. “I want to get down on my knees in front of you, pin your hips against a wall and suck until you come down my throat.”_

_“Where?”_

"Anywhere." 

_“Would you suck me off in a bathroom stall, Hazza? Are you that desperate?”_

_Harry pulls away from Louis, forces himself to turn and meet his eyes. “Want to find out?”_

_And there are flashes--Louis’ head thunking back against the dirty tile walls of the bathroom stall, his hand tight in Harry’s hair, his cock halfway down Harry’s throat, right where he likes it, quiet, restrained sounds of appreciation and loss of control and Harry comes with his own hand on his cock, Louis’ come spilling messy from his lips, and his name spilling from Louis’. ___

_When they fall asleep that night, Louis traces patterns on Harry’s bare shoulders and noses against his temple until they both pass out._

\---

Harry has to leave.

\---

Niall gets him home, dumps him on his and Zayn’s bed and promptly falls asleep next to him, but Harry lies awake, stares up at the ceiling and the streetlight outside streaking over the plaster, and when he gets up and trips across the hall, he finds himself in Louis’ room, door against his back when he sinks to the floor, hands pressed hard against his eyes. 

He can’t stop seeing the way Louis looked at him with that girl in his arms, can’t help but swallow around memories, around dreams he once had that are surging up within him now.

Harry loved Louis when he was eighteen, when he was twenty two, when his heart was breaking because Louis was _leaving_ , was choosing something other than him. He just loved him too selfishly, too wholly, and in the end it tore them apart, and he never even stopped.

\---

Louis’ voice wakes him somewhere around three in the morning, annoyed and slurred and confused, and he scrambles away from the door when Louis shoves it, looks up at him from his spot on the floor, squinting against the hall light.

“What the fuck, Harry?”

“I--” He blinks, swallows. “Sorry, shit, I’m sorry. I fell asleep.” 

“Why are you in my room?” Louis flips the light on, turns to glare at him, and his eyes track down Harry’s face, his chin lifts a fraction with something like surprise, and Harry realizes there are still tear tracks down his cheeks. He wipes at his face with the sleeve of his jumper, pushes himself up and moves to leave. 

“Harry.”

“I’m sorry, Louis.”

“Why?”

Harry frowns, confused, and looks back over his shoulder. Louis still looks drunk, tired with it, voice quiet and exhausted. “Why am I sorry?”

“Why are you sorry? What, exactly, are you apologizing for?”

His heart twists in on itself like a black hole between one beat and the next, his fingers spasming against his thighs. “What do you mean?”

“Forget it.” Louis sighs, turns away to tug his sweater over his head. “Go to bed, Harry.” 

“I’m sorry.” He presses a hand against the doorknob, breathes in. “I’m sorry, Louis, I’m fucking--I can’t--I’m so fucking sorry.” 

And then he’s gone.

\---

_“Oi, Harry, Lou! Hurry the fuck up!”_

_Zayn pounds on the bathroom door and Harry giggles, brushes his hair out of his face and pulls Louis’ shirt straight, buttons his jeans for him while he fixes his own hair. “Be right out.”_

_“Fuck it. Be downstairs in a minute or we’ll leave without you!”_

_“You can’t!” Louis calls, finally pushing Harry away from him. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”_

_“You’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine. It’s not like we’re going up there alone.” Harry smiles at him in the mirror, nudges him with an elbow. “Come on.”_

_Louis’ fingers trace across his lower back when they walk out, and Harry doesn’t stop smiling._

\---

He picks up on the third call from Niall, after two from Zayn and four texts from Liam. The sun’s just about to come up, and he’s fucking freezing. It takes him a moment to answer. “‘lo.”

“Where _are_ you?” Niall sounds angry, and he’s right to be, he’s really fucking right, isn’t he? Aren’t they all? He’s the only one in the wrong, always wrong, fucking _always_.

“I don’t know.” Harry clears his throat, scratches his neck. His voice is hoarse. “Can you--can you send a cab? I don’t have my wallet.” 

“I could if I knew where you were.”

“Fuck, just--Niall, can I talk to Zayn?”

“Fine. Bloody idiot.” There’s the sound of the phone changing hands, angry voices and possibly a scuffle before Zayn’s on the line, a door shutting through the connection.

“Harry? Are you okay? What happened?” 

“I’m sorry, Zayn, I didn’t mean to, I never meant to--”

“Shut up and tell me where you are. We can talk when I get there, yeah?” 

He looks up at the street signs around him, shrugs as he relays the information. “I’m on a bench. I’ll wait. I think my phone’s about to die.”

“See you soon.” Zayn hesitates, adds, “Don’t do anything stupid, Harry, please.”

“I won’t.”

He’s done more than enough stupid things, really. It’s probably time he stopped.

Zayn gets to him after the sun’s risen above the park he’s looking over, only he’s not alone. Louis, Niall, and Liam trail behind him, talking in low voices, huddled together for warmth. Zayn throws a blanket around Harry’s shoulders and sits down on the bench next to him, settling in close and saying nothing until the other three disappear down a path.

“What went wrong?”

“I remembered too much,” Harry says, head falling back onto the top of the bench, fingers clutching the blanket close. 

“Hmm.” Zayn hands him a coffee, follows his example of letting his head loll, eyes closed. Harry looks at him sideways, at his profile, the sharp nose and messy hair and long eyelashes, and he wishes he loved Zayn the way he loved Louis, the way he still loves the memory of Louis, only Zayn--Zayn has never been his to love in that way, has only ever been his in that Harry belongs to him too. “What about?”

“Louis. Me. How everything used to be before I fucked it up.” 

“Maybe it wasn’t all you.” Zayn opens his eyes, looks at him sideways when Harry starts laughing. “I’m serious.” 

“How could it have been anything else? I’m the one who started the war between us all. I tried to turn everyone against Louis for wanting to do an album on his own.”

Zayn holds up a hand to stop him, brings it back down to squeeze his thigh. Harry frowns at him, sips his coffee to show he’ll listen. “When you came to me, to tell me what was going on, you couldn’t talk, you were shaking so hard, Harry. I think that was your first panic attack. You just fell apart in my arms and I was scared out of my mind, and you just kept gasping Lou’s name. I called him, told the boys to go over and check on him when he didn’t answer, and they found him drinking tea in front of the telly. He wasn’t angry or visibly hurt or--and you were just--I was angry with him for a long time too.”

Harry shakes his head. “Louis didn’t ever do anything wrong. He had bigger dreams than m--us, and I resented that.”

Zayn looks at him like he knows exactly what Harry means, but he doesn’t say anything about it. “He didn’t try to talk to you. He didn’t explain.”

“I wouldn’t have let him,” Harry says.

“You would have. You loved him,” Zayn says.

“Maybe,” Harry allows, “but I pushed him away, lashed out. I didn’t give him the chance.”

“No, you didn’t.” Zayn stretches, yawns, and in the early morning light Harry can see every line of age, of the stubble still on his chin, the circles under his eyes. 

Zayn’s too good of a friend for anyone to truly deserve, least of all Harry.

“If I had, we’d still be together. Fuck, we’d probably be on our seventh album.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s in the past and we’ll never know that for sure. What matters is that we’re all here, trying to fix ourselves. What matters is that you came here despite everything because you _want_ to fix everything, even when it gets so bad you also want to run away.” Zayn looks at him pointedly. 

Harry looks across to the park. He can see the boys on the playground, Niall running up a slide and Louis at the top of a tower, Liam on the ground with his hands in his pockets below them. He wants to run over there, jump on Liam’s back and laugh against the side of his head when he spin around, wants to jump off and run away.

He hasn’t been on a treadmill in a week.

“So how do I handle it?” he asks, and Zayn smiles, leans forward next to him. 

“However you want to. Stop holding back. You’re still Harry, even if you are more timid now. Do you want a reputation as shy?”

“I already have a reputation,” Harry says, grinning. “The world loves to hate and pity me.”

“So pity it back. It doesn’t have us like you do.”

“Do I?”

Zayn nods over to the park, where Niall has paused to look at something in his hands, and Harry’s phone alerts him of a text in the same moment. “You tell me.”

\---

It’s easier with Liam and Niall. He makes Zayn take Louis out, and sits them down on the couch, tells the story to his clasped hands rather than their faces. Niall snickers at inappropriate times, and Harry suspects he’s heard Louis’ side of this before. It makes it a little easier.

“When did you--Louis never told us how long you guys were--” Liam looks confused and enlightened, a mix that makes Harry smile at him. 

“Together?” Harry suggests, shrugging as he leans his elbows on his knees. “Few months after Eleanor broke up with him to the end of--well, until that fight.”

Liam makes a face. “And you _still_ reacted that badly? Terrible form, Harry.”

“Fuck off, Li, I loved him a little too much. I didn’t know how to handle it.” Niall hides his face in his shoulder; Harry suspects he’s smiling. “What?”

“Nothing,” Niall says, and it doesn’t _sound_ like he’s amused at all.

“You okay?” Liam catches it too, looks over at him. “Niall?”

He takes a deep breath, rolls his shoulders back as he slouches in the corner of the sofa. “I don’t know how much Louis told either of you, but it wasn’t just Harry. Louis was fucking confused back then too. He didn’t know how to deal with it. I think when he decided to try going solo he was trying to get his head together, kind of a test for himself.” 

Harry frowns. “I don’t think you should be telling me this,” he says, even though he doesn’t want to. Even though he should have known, maybe did a little, when he’d catch Louis staring at him as he was eating cereal in the afternoon, when Louis’d lie down on his back under Harry and never open his eyes even as his hands pulled Harry in closer, always closer.

“Maybe not, but at this point he’s not going to unless you sit him down to talk for real, no running away, no getting scared.” Niall glances sideways at Liam, shrugs again. “I understand why you did it, not that it excuses anything, and I forgive you, and so do Liam and Zayn, but Louis is going to be harder.”

“You think I don’t know that? Do you know how many times I’ve tried to start that conversation?” Harry slumps back in his seat, running a hand through his hair violently.

“About three,” Liam answers, smiling a bit. 

“Fuck off.”

Niall laughs again, leans forward to squeeze Harry’s knee.

(When they were younger, Niall would have thrown himself into Harry’s chair and smothered him until they were all breathlessly laughing in a pile, Harry buried beneath the others. 

They’re not as young anymore--

\--but it still makes him smile.)

\---

_They all work on penning lyrics for their third album by themselves, and Harry almost regrets it. The fans are excited, the boys love it, Simon expressed his support but asked them to run through him before they did anything serious, and Harry’s sitting in his room, staring at a blank page and trying to drown out Coldplay in the background._

_“That’s not gonna help,” Louis says from the doorway, yawning as he tosses his scarf onto Harry’s bed; he reconsiders and tosses himself down as well, burrowing into the unmade sheets. “Chris Martin can only take you so far.”_

_Harry frowns, scratches out the lines he was trying out, and tosses his pen at Louis. “Who decided we were going to do this?”_

_“Liam?”_

_“Bullshit,” Harry says, spinning in his chair._

_“Well, maybe you should take a break.”_

_He shakes his head, shakes his hands out, and turns back to the desk. “Louis, you know I--”_

_His vision goes white for a moment when Louis tosses his shirt over Harry’s head, but when he looks back after pulling it down, disgruntled, Louis’ eyebrows are up and he’s leaning up on his elbows on Harry’s bed and his hipbones are calling to Harry’s mouth right now, they_ are _. He starts to smile._

_“That’s a break?”_

_“‘Course. C’mon.”_

_“Move a little closer now?”_

_Louis stares at him for a minute, then rolls over and buries his face in Harry’s pillow; his shoulders start shaking with either laughter or tears, Harry isn’t sure, because he’s a little preoccupied with moving over to the bed, pressing his thumbs into the dimples at the bottom of Louis’ spine, admiring the sharp wings of his shoulder blades._

_"I don't want you to fuck me anymore," Louis says into the pillow._

_He grins. “What? Your own pick up line doesn’t work on you?”_

_“That line is Niall’s, Harold.”_

_Harry laughs, leans down to press his forehead against Louis’ back; Louis shivers under him._

_“You didn’t have such a hard time writing for the last album.” Louis seems determined to continue having their conversation, despite the fact that he was the one to initially distract Harry in the first place._

_“I barely wrote anything on Take Me Home,” Harry points out. “Liam, Niall, and Zayn did the most writing. And you. None of us had full songs of our own. That’s probably why mine’s terrible--couldn’t make it through X Factor on my own, can’t make it through anything on my own now.”_

_“Shut up about the fate stuff,” Louis groans, peering back over his shoulder with one eye, “and just get our clothes off, will you?”_

_Harry complies._

_(He finishes the song three messy days later, with Louis’ marks pressed into his skin.)_

\---

Niall pulls out his guitar after dinner one night, and Harry settles on the floor in front of the sofa, leaning back to back with Zayn; Liam’s on the countertop, legs hanging over the edge, and Louis pulls a stool from the kitchen closer. 

They haven’t tried this yet. It’s not something that’s really feasible, the five of them getting back together on the music scene, but they used to just screw off in their free time like this, and Harry’s facing Louis tonight, can see him trying not to smile. They’ve all missed it.

“Girl, it should be me,” Zayn warbles from behind Harry, and he grins in response, leans further back. It’s a little sloppy, a little out of time (they’re all out of time, though, aren’t they?) but it still feels good, feels like family and laughter and serenading each other inappropriately. They forget themselves, and then Harry is staring at Louis when he sings “and that I’ll never let you go.”

“You didn’t,” he says, forgetting for a moment, and the rest of them freeze; Zayn’s shoulders shift against his, fingers brushing against the back of his hand, and Harry realizes Louis is staring at him too.

“What?”

“I asked you once if you would ever let me go, and you said you wouldn’t. I was the one who forced you to go, though, didn’t I?”

Louis looks at their friends, rubs his palms down his thighs before he sighs. “Can Harry and I have a moment, lads?”

Liam and Niall stand up easily enough, grab coats from the pile, but Zayn doesn’t move until Harry nudges him. “This has to happen, mate.”

Zayn squeezes his wrist before he gets up, says, “Then make it happen right this time,” under his breath, and Harry looks up at him for a moment, sees him smile, feels his heart rate calm.

Even if he never gets Louis back, he has Zayn, and that could be enough. 

The door shuts behind the boys; Harry can hear them thumping down the stairs for a minute before he’s left alone with Louis, who hasn’t stopped looking at him. “Well?” he says finally, and Harry shakes his head, crosses his ankles over each other.

“I was always the one seeking assurance from you, when we were together. I always wanted to be sure you’d stay with me, because I didn’t think I could handle it if you didn’t. I was partly right, but it was my fault in the first place. At the first hint of you moving on, I threw you away from me, like it would be any better if it was under my own power.”

“Was it?”

Harry laughs, lays back on the floor and lets his legs sprawl. “Fuck no.”

“Good.”

“I felt like I was dying every single day. If it weren’t for Zayn, I probably would have.”

Louis shifts on the stool, clasps his hands between his legs as he inhales. There’s something wild about his hair sticking out from under his beanie, about the way his eyes don’t move off of Harry, in the way one of his knees bounces. “I think we all felt that way.”

“I don’t know what I can say, Louis. I can’t--an apology isn’t enough, I know that, it will never be enough no matter how many times I say it or how much I mean it, but--” Harry swallows, drags his fingers across the rug under him. 

“Can you tell me _why?_ ” Louis asks, and his voice catches, makes Harry lean up on his elbows to meet his eyes. 

Harry has to start three times before he can say it, before his heart slows enough for him to hear other things, before it comes tumbling out of him in a rush. “I thought you wanted to leave me. You’d been quiet for weeks and I couldn’t understand it. I was afraid, and then you said you had something to tell me, told me you wanted to make your own album, and I thought it meant losing you. I thought it meant you were stepping out onto the ledge to throw yourself over, away from me. It wasn’t even... it wasn’t even the band, Lou. It was about me, and you, and never wanting to let you go.”

“Where’s the cliche about letting something go if you love it?” Louis jokes, quiet, strained, and Harry laughs anyway, wishes the catch under his ribs would disappear so he could breathe properly, wishes Louis was pressed against his side here on the floor where he was always supposed to be.

“Mine’s a selfish love,” he says. “I’m sorry I never learned that until it was too late. I’m sorry I blamed you for ages even when I knew it was me.”

Louis nods, pushes his hand over his beanie to take it off. Harry watches him, waits, because whatever Louis says now is the final word; he knows it in the same way he knows there won’t be anyone like Louis ever again.

“I don’t know if I can... if I can really excuse your actions,” Louis says finally, looking back up again. “But you’re--you’ve always been--Harry, you were one of my best mates and I loved you, I really did. And I fucking _miss_ that. I miss _you_. I’ve always missed you, even when I was angry.” 

“Was angry?”

“Was.” Louis nods once, decisive, and offers the smallest smile. “Mostly I was hurt, but I’m done with that now. I’m done living in the past and being haunted by it. I want... I want to be able to sit in the same room as you and not think of the look on your face in the kitchen that day.”

“Can we?” Harry asks, small and serious. “Can we just forget that?”

He shakes his head, climbs down off of the stool to stand over Harry before offering him a hand up. “Probably not, but maybe we don’t need to. Maybe we shouldn’t.”

Harry stares down at him, breaths shallow in his chest as gratitude overwhelms him, and when Louis slaps him on the shoulder and tells him to put on a coat and scarf to go find the lads, he finally smiles, finally lets himself believe they’ll be okay, in the end. 

Maybe not just yet, but in the end, they will be. 

(Or maybe there won’t be an end but they’ll get there anyway. It’s a start.)

\--


End file.
